Netflix to users, developers: we own your viewing history

Changes to the API will block other apps' access to viewing history, other data.

Netflix has announced that it will change both its public application programming interfaces (APIs) and the terms of service to access them, essentially locking away users’ rental history data and preventing them from using third-party applications to export it. At the same time, the company is making it harder for developers to integrate information from Netflix’s API with data from other services as the company maneuvers to keep users within its own applications.

On October 12, when Netflix aborted its spinoff of the physical disc rental business under the new "Qwikster" brand, it announced that the company’s public API would continue to support DVD-related features (after previously announcing they would be retired as part of the split). But now Netflix is splitting its disc and streaming “catalog” databases, and dumping much of the metadata that developers had depended on from both the DVD and the streaming APIs. The functional changes eliminate nearly everything related to users’ viewing history, including rental history, when rented disks are shipped and returned, when streamed films are watched, and the bookmark information for streamed videos paused in progress.

The changes, most of which go into effect this September, were announced in Netflix’s developer blog on June 15 by Daniel Jacobson, Netflix’s director of engineering for the API. In part, they’re driven by the shift in Netflix's strategic direction away from its movies-by-mail business and towards streaming movies, television shows, and its own branded content. But they also appear to prevent developers from using the Netflix library to aggregate a user's movie-watching history across competing services (combining Netflix and iTunes data, for example)—and to prevent developers from essentially wrapping Netflix’s API as their own paid service.

The post generated an immediate negative reaction, with some developers convinced that Netflix wants to cut off their air supply. One developer commented publicly on the changes, saying, “In essence, all the API stuff that third-party developers use to make value-added applications that work better than Netflix’s own site... is going away.”

The changes to the terms of service initially appeared even more hostile to developers, placing restrictions on the packaging of Netflix data as a paid service. That prompted a blog post by social movie rating site Goodfil.ms co-founder John Barton, in which Barton wrote, “The first implication of these additions: if you decide you just want to create a 'Netflix' app, and add significant value on top of the Netflix service, you cannot charge your users for that value. You can do something positive for Netflix, but not for yourself. There is no incentive for you to build something useful for Netflix customers, and if you’ve already built your app, you have three months left.”

But Netflix has indicated the terms of service changes aren’t targeted at “consumer-facing” apps. Instead, they’re intended to prevent developers from repackaging the API as a service for connected televisions or other websites to extract content from Netflix to populate catalogs or act as the primary source for a content search engine.

Still, there’s reason for developers to be suspicious of Netflix’s intentions after the company’s move last year to shed its disc-by-mail business. The company has swerved with its API plans a few times, and had begun to remove functionality from the API even before the June 15 blog post.

In May, for instance, Netflix also dropped information about when a movie would expire from Netflix’s streaming library. The “available until” information was modified to show all films as being available until January 1, 2100—until two weeks before they expire, when the actual date will be displayed. And as of today, the company has also retired the “App Gallery” it had created to highlight third-party applications using its API. Netflix said that the gallery was being retired because “these pages were outdated and seldom used.”

Huh? I think editing did something weird there. Trying to understand, but having trouble.

@aficionado, it's a problem because Netflix has gone out of their way to degrade their website to try to hide the service's deficiencies. For example, currently unavailable videos I'd once had in my Instant queue are no longer listed in a separate area of the queue. Searching for items not available to watch instantly used to bring up some information, but no longer. Third-party apps often just work better.

BTW, this is probably old news, but I was just noticing that Amazon added a "watch list" feature that's available on my Roku player. Not being able to easily access Amazon streams was one reason we kept Netflix. They certainly haven't made up the content lost with the Starz contract.

I think this is perfectly legit, especially if NetFlix intends to get into the advertising biz. (I'd watch limited ads on netflix if it meant they could get newer and better content - the current streaming library isn't very interesting to me). It also makes sense if Netflix is interested in moving into Hulu Plus' territory, which seems like the next logical step. I also like the idea of my information being less shared.

Netflix has been behaving very erratically with their APIs. It's rather unheard-of to make sweeping changes to your API prior to telling your developers. They need to be more professional about this kind of thing.

Also of note, if Netflix wants users to stay within their native applications, it's about time they actually give their users what they want: a full-fledged application that allows users to interact with every feature of their Netflix account. Disc queue, instant queue, ratings, suggestions... the whole lot of it. Their current apps are pathetic, and the users are forced to look elsewhere for the features they want.

What Netflix really needs to implement is a multi-user setup with parental controls. I'd love to watch some of the more adult content on Netflix, but I'm not about to do that as long as my kids have access to the entire viewing history (with no ability to delete individual records). Also, I'd love to have finer control over what my kids are able to watch on Netflix, and what hours they're able to watch.

I wasn't aware that they had changed the "available until" data. I've not watched movies before, because I knew I could come back in the next six months and watch it. That's out the window, it would seem. Thanks Netflix, you're really trying to retain me as a customer.

Let me guess. You're one of those people that thinks the selection of streaming content on Netflix is actually any good.

These changes disallow aggregators and wrappers that can make Netflix more useful and integrate it with other services. Losing that sort of thing is only fine if you think that Netflix is perfect and you're perfectly content in their little walled garden and think you will be forever.

It also sounds like it will kill services that allow you to determine if something is available across multiple streaming platforms.

I have no problem with Netflix making it harder for my data to be accessible to outside parties. I just wish they'd make it a little harder to see my viewing history by the kids/babysitter/etc when they use my account on xbox for watching movies. Regardless of what I'm watching, that information should require an additonal password entry just like the credit card entry.

Developers need to start standing together against companies who do these bait and switch with the APIs.

Don't flock to build a business model on someone else's business model? I hate to blame the developers, because I really don't it's an attractive idea, but from a real world point of view you have to remember that platform makers will eventually screw you. You have to become critical to a lot of users or you're done.

Now I'm off to go bemoan Microsoft for not supporting Win32 until the end of time.

All I want form Netflix is a fucking iPad app that doesn't crash everytime I look at it funny, or do a search or try to tap on a drop down. The funny (not really funny) thing is that Netflix doesn't even acknowledge the issue even though its rampant among gen 1 iPads. From the get go Netflix has demonstrated its incompetence when it comes to app development. The 1st Netflix app was a fucking tragedy, slow as hell and it was basically an app version of the site at the time. They finally upgrade to something more useful and its still slow, buggy, and they removed all the relevant features. Meanwhile Hulu's app is well designed, has gotten better over time, and it almost never crashes.

In conclusion Netflix sucks. The content isn't even really there. Most of the time I end up renting what I want to see from iTunes. I'm this close to canceling the the stupid thing.

I was a streaming customer of theirs (in Canada) for a few months in the winter. Though watching movies & tv on demand on the internet was novel, I got tired of their many problems, such as messed-up aspect ratio, faulty sound/video, mediocre selection, and in some cases chunks of movies actually missing (errors in whatever automated process they use to encode, I'm guessing). The funny thing is that the reviews of individual movies are full of customer comments about very specific issues when they are present, but I guess Netflix doesn't really care? You can't even contact them online!

I would estimate at least 10% of their catalog is actually significantly technically flawed, to the point if it was a dvd you purchased, you would take it back to the store.

I just recently tried a month again on another free trial, and I found the selection and user experience even worse than before. They seem to be following the Yahoo model, innovate for a while, then slowly die.

@aficionado, it's a problem because Netflix has gone out of their way to degrade their website to try to hide the service's deficiencies. For example, currently unavailable videos I'd once had in my Instant queue are no longer listed in a separate area of the queue. Searching for items not available to watch instantly used to bring up some information, but no longer. Third-party apps often just work better.

BTW, this is probably old news, but I was just noticing that Amazon added a "watch list" feature that's available on my Roku player. Not being able to easily access Amazon streams was one reason we kept Netflix. They certainly haven't made up the content lost with the Starz contract.

@Galeran, Spot on, the real story here is that Netflix hasn't been doing well in terms of content for some time and has made the decision to disguise this fact in a number of ways. I think this is just more evidence of that effort.

Since when is a company required to allow outside developers to utilize information about their customers at all? Why should one company go through the trouble of collecting data only to allow another to come in and make money from that data for free? The only problem I see here is that a few developers will get burned by an API change. Happens all the time.

Oh, and if you think Netflix sucks or you cancelled it because it sucks: no one cares. If you don't like it, don't use it.

Let me guess. You're one of those people that thinks the selection of streaming content on Netflix is actually any good.

I don't know about him, but I am. Less than $10 a month and I have better content selection than I do on cable TV for $100 a month. Granted, it's not the most new selection and eventually, if they don't upload more content, I'll move onto something else.

But for now, I'm getting TV series I've never watched with the ability to watch them back to back, as many or as few as I feel like watching. I'm getting a fair selection of movies (not great, but not horrible either) as well. To top it off, total commercials watched on all TV shows/movies? Zero.

It's like this - one, I require cable Internet speeds for my business. DSL just doesn't cut it when you need to backup a client's data, grab the latest Linux iso or anything else that takes more than a hundred megs of data to make happen. Two, I want to be entertained when I come home from working all day. I have three options:

#1: Cable TV - bloody expensive and commercials galore - even on cable networks (which never used to be - the whole point of paying for Cable TV was the fact that cable networks were commercial-free. We old farts remember!)

#2: Satellite TV - expensive, commercials and I pay slightly less than Cable for the opportunity to see what living hell is when there's foul weather and a program I really want to watch.

#3: Online streaming service. I have a few to chose from. Best bang for my buck so far that I've found is Netflix.

Find me something better and I'll consider jumping ship, but until then, it works fantastic and it gives great value for my dollar.

Hiding expiry dates makes sense; what benefit does Netflix gain from exposing the volatility of their content? It doesn't help them negotiate new deals ("So... I see your deal with Company X expires in 3 months. I represent Company Y...")

Netflix and a 3 year old girl. Awesome. My "Recommended For You" is a sea of pink ponies. Brilliant.

Netflix has been behaving very erratically with their APIs. It's rather unheard-of to make sweeping changes to your API prior to telling your developers. They need to be more professional about this kind of thing.

Also of note, if Netflix wants users to stay within their native applications, it's about time they actually give their users what they want: a full-fledged application that allows users to interact with every feature of their Netflix account. Disc queue, instant queue, ratings, suggestions... the whole lot of it. Their current apps are pathetic, and the users are forced to look elsewhere for the features they want.

Eh, I think pathetic is an exaggeration. It's not like the app is non-functional or something. You can still access those missing things by going to the website through your smartphone so it doesn't seem like a huge thing. There aren't many times I want to use the mobile app to access my disc que instead of the streaming content.

BinaryFu wrote:

JEDIDIAH wrote:

aficionado wrote:

I fail to see why this is a problem.

Let me guess. You're one of those people that thinks the selection of streaming content on Netflix is actually any good.

I don't know about him, but I am. Less than $10 a month and I have better content selection than I do on cable TV for $100 a month. Granted, it's not the most new selection and eventually, if they don't upload more content, I'll move onto something else.

But for now, I'm getting TV series I've never watched with the ability to watch them back to back, as many or as few as I feel like watching. I'm getting a fair selection of movies (not great, but not horrible either) as well. To top it off, total commercials watched on all TV shows/movies? Zero..

They are missing tons of TV series, which is fine b/c they have great ones like Luther, but even then the delay in new episodes is significant. The new release problem also extends to their new movies section, which is awful. The way they fill out these sections with nonsense like Ted Talks and really bad looking reality shows doesn't help their case. I agree though for 8 bucks a month it's better than any cable channel that comes to mind, so it's important to temper demands (and the people asking why their selection is so limited while also wanting prices to never increase need to grow up maybe.

Developers need to start standing together against companies who do these bait and switch with the APIs.

Don't flock to build a business model on someone else's business model? I hate to blame the developers, because I really don't it's an attractive idea, but from a real world point of view you have to remember that platform makers will eventually screw you. You have to become critical to a lot of users or you're done..

Then explain what was the point of these public API's in the first place? To let people do extra services for Netflix's benefit out of the goodness of their heart? These websites offered services and information that Netflix didn't and provided added value to people and helped make Netflix better. It's not a one way street.

Huh? I think editing did something weird there. Trying to understand, but having trouble.

@aficionado, it's a problem because Netflix has gone out of their way to degrade their website to try to hide the service's deficiencies. For example, currently unavailable videos I'd once had in my Instant queue are no longer listed in a separate area of the queue. Searching for items not available to watch instantly used to bring up some information, but no longer. Third-party apps often just work better.

BTW, this is probably old news, but I was just noticing that Amazon added a "watch list" feature that's available on my Roku player. Not being able to easily access Amazon streams was one reason we kept Netflix. They certainly haven't made up the content lost with the Starz contract.

I know losing the Starz contract left a gaping whole in the library of things I wanted to watch on Netflix. I was debating about finding a wrapper app to aggregate all my music/movie content from Netflix, Spotify/Grooveshark, and Amazon on Demand but it looks like that was just wishful thinking.

This is the first I've heard of 3rd party Netflix services, but it sounds like they could have been cool. Oh well. My biggest complaint with Netflix recently was their removal of the ability to add movies/shows to a "saved" list that would then automatically populate your instant queue when they became available. When I randomly think of a movie, I want to be able to add that to a list somewhere. Now I have to go outside of netflix to write down that movie so I can remind myself of it later (and see if it's available then).

So far I'm sticking with Netfilx because there is still plenty on there that I enjoy watching. But my wife is already out of things to watch and I'm getting closer. They do need to fix that or we will be switching to something else eventually.

Let me guess. You're one of those people that thinks the selection of streaming content on Netflix is actually any good.

I don't know about him, but I am. Less than $10 a month and I have better content selection than I do on cable TV for $100 a month. Granted, it's not the most new selection and eventually, if they don't upload more content, I'll move onto something else.

But for now, I'm getting TV series I've never watched with the ability to watch them back to back, as many or as few as I feel like watching. I'm getting a fair selection of movies (not great, but not horrible either) as well. To top it off, total commercials watched on all TV shows/movies? Zero.

It's like this - one, I require cable Internet speeds for my business. DSL just doesn't cut it when you need to backup a client's data, grab the latest Linux iso or anything else that takes more than a hundred megs of data to make happen. Two, I want to be entertained when I come home from working all day. I have three options:

#1: Cable TV - bloody expensive and commercials galore - even on cable networks (which never used to be - the whole point of paying for Cable TV was the fact that cable networks were commercial-free. We old farts remember!)

#2: Satellite TV - expensive, commercials and I pay slightly less than Cable for the opportunity to see what living hell is when there's foul weather and a program I really want to watch.

#3: Online streaming service. I have a few to chose from. Best bang for my buck so far that I've found is Netflix.

Find me something better and I'll consider jumping ship, but until then, it works fantastic and it gives great value for my dollar.

Something better? Cable with a good DVR. Tivo had this beat in 1999.

The only advantage Netflix has is price. It's not just inferior to cable. It's also inferior to the payware streaming services. Even those don't have a sufficient breadth of content to completely replace cable.

Using Netflix to "cut the cord" requires some pretty severe compromises. You're not kidding anyone.

Pretty much everything is better unless your only consideration is price.

I don't see what the big deal is, but then, I'm perfectly happy with Netflix. What is the disadvantage of this?

EDIT:

Quote:

Using Netflix to "cut the cord" requires some pretty severe compromises. You're not kidding anyone.

For someone like me who doesn't watch much TV, or follows shows weekly, it's perfect. I don't have cable, just an Apple TV/Netflix. The combination of iTunes rentals/Netflix streaming satisfies 95% of what I'd like. Not to mention, it's much cheaper and ad-free.

Not to say there aren't compromises, but it really depends on who is using it.

The only advantage Netflix has is price. It's not just inferior to cable. It's also inferior to the payware streaming services. Even those don't have a sufficient breadth of content to completely replace cable.

Using Netflix to "cut the cord" requires some pretty severe compromises. You're not kidding anyone.

Pretty much everything is better unless your only consideration is price.

I think you are looking about this all wrong, and I don't get the Netflix hate in general. I don't think anybody would argue Netflix alone can compete with a full $100+ cable service. I use Netflix primarily to watch TV shows in conjunction with Amazon for newer movie rentals and I still pay a fraction of a cable service.

I don't see what I could possibly be missing out on. I'm not left wanting for more media. I have watched dozens of great series (hundreds of hours of tv) like Star Trek, Battlestar, The Office, Parks and Rec, Lost, Peep Show, Sons of Anarchy, Etc. Do I see it right when it comes out? No, but I'd rather be able to watch multiple episodes in a row on the weekend anyways.